The Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  The hazy image of the renSime’s nerves outlining his body had shimmered into mist, but as soon as Rimon’s attention focused, the image sharpened again, now brighter. A movement drew Rimon’s attention to his right. Aipensha!

  A swirling sense of unreality, then confusion and doubt, followed by fear shattered Rimon’s concentration on his patient. His deceased daughter stood over his patient with him, but he knew that in reality his living daughter was holding the patient’s fields steady. His body felt her strength, and felt nothing of Aipensha.

  “Concentrate!” commanded Aipensha.

  “Focus!” warned Solamar sharply.

  Dizzy, Rimon brought his whole attention back to the interlaced lines of throbbing energy that composed a second body for his patient. He knew what he had to accomplish. He knew how the weaver’s body should zlin. As he anticipated that result, it formed in the hazy latticework hovering over the weaver’s body.

  Exhaustion threatened his grip on the fields, but Solamar stepped up behind him and urged Rimon’s tentacles to spread out, somehow lengthening to encompass the entire hazy image of the weaver’s selyn circulation. “Down now, press down, rejoin the perfect image to the body.”

  With the last of his strength, Rimon kneaded the two images into a single whole. Everything wavered, but he kept pushing, and then something let go and he was falling.

  He fell forever, too terrified to scream.

  * * * * * * *

  Solamar Grant jackknifed upright in Rimon’s bed with a gasp and sat amid his blankets dragging air into his lungs, feeling the chill dry the sweat from his brow.

  The fire was banked, the room lit only by bright Gen nager. Kahleen was curled up in a blanket on the settee near the hearth, sound asleep. Gens had to sleep more than Simes, and usually slept more soundly. Grant let himself pant for a while, assembling the memory of the dream.

  He mopped his forehead, scraping sleep out of his eyes, and confronted reality. It hadn’t been a dream. The falling sensation at the end was the surest giveaway, but the clarity of the memory was enough all by itself. He had accidentally wandered during sleep. He hadn’t done that since childhood. Worse: he had wandered into Rimon’s awareness, and Rimon had noticed him there.

  None of that should have happened, and it was all his fault for opening Rimon’s awareness while trying to get a transfer into Tuzhel.

  As strength returned to his trembling limbs, Solamar wrenched the blankets aside and grabbed his clothing. What have I done! What have I done now!

  He took time to gather Kahleen up and put her on the bed, spreading more blankets over her. She didn’t stir.

  Then he was racing down halls, augmenting to a slightly higher selyn usage for speed, dodging slow moving Gens and patients. He ignored shouts about rules against augmenting indoors, flashed around a corner, raced down stairs and came up to a tightly packed crowd in the hall between Sian’s room and the room across from it where they had the captured Freebander, Tuzhel, confined.

  Xanon and Maigrey were there, Xanon pacing, haranguing several other channels and Companions while Maigrey sprawled in a chair titled back against the wall, broadcasting boredom.

  BanSha, the boy who tended Rimon’s sleeping quarters, was struggling with a bucket, mopping the floor as he backed out of the Freebander’s room. He couldn’t be more than twelve natal years old, small for his age, with no sign of physical maturity yet.

  Solamar grabbed the ambient selyn fields and tilted the gradient, smoothing it out. All the channels except Xanon immediately adjusted and cooperated, bringing their alert attention to Solamar. When Xanon finally noticed, he turned and stared at the source of the distraction.

  “Excuse me, I have to get into Sian’s room to help Rimon. Surely you all have assignments?”

  “No,” started Xanon, but the others cut him off, and in moments the corridor was empty of all but BanSha who was staring up at him worshipfully.

  Solamar spared him a wink as he crashed through Sian’s door uninvited and, he realized instantly, unwelcome. Lexy flinched at the intrusion before Garen could block the field turbulence for her. She valiantly ignored her personal worry as she addressed the problem Rimon’s oddly fractured fields presented.

  Incongruously, Solamar’s heart warmed with delight at her strength.

  Rimon was supine on the floor beside Sian’s bed, Lexy bent over him, Garen supporting her while Bruce worked on Rimon from his other side. Brilliant though he was, Bruce was applying the wrong treatment and Lexy knew it wasn’t working, but not what to do.

  Solamar slid into the ambient, shutting the door behind him. He knelt, cupped a hand on the crown of Rimon’s head, extended tentacles and planted his other hand at his solar plexus. He grabbed hold of Bruce’s rock steady field, whispered, “Del Rimon Farris,” into Rimon’s ear, then sealed the Farris channel’s spirit into his body.

  All the while, the refrain pounded through his mind, “What have I done? Why did I do that?” All the while, he knew. This man had touched him deeply. He couldn’t let Sian die at Rimon’s hands, but he couldn’t let Aipensha manifest further in Rimon’s life either.

  Abruptly, Rimon gasped and grabbed at Lexy and Bruce, pulling himself up to a sitting position. Panting, he rasped, “I’m alive! This is real!”

  “Dad!” choked Lexy, the ambient shattering with her relief. She grabbed him and held on tight.

  Bruce shuddered and turned away, curling his fields in on himself to keep from disturbing the Farris channels.

  Garen grinned at Solamar, and let his celebration fill the room. “I don’t know if you did that, Solamar, but I really thought he was gone!”

  To avoid having to answer that, Solamar rose and went to the bed where Sian was still unconscious.

  Rimon struggled to his feet, assuring Garen, “You and Lexy did a great job. You’re a fine team, the two of you.”

  Wishing now for Kahleen, Solamar made a lateral contact with the weaver. The renSime’s left hand laterals responded eagerly to his grip. He ran his attention all around the man’s selyn circulation system, tracing out the paths that had been broken by the injuries. Selyn passed through all the nerves brightly, suffusing all the muscles and tissues with pure life. Healing now seethed through every cell in the man’s body.

  He broke the contact and let Rimon take his place, despite the protests of the crowd in the little room. Before Rimon could even hitch his knee onto the bed, Sian tossed restlessly and fought back to consciousness.

  “Rimon!” Without thinking, the man raised his left arm to take Rimon’s hand, then stared dumbfounded at his own arm. He noticed his legs had moved too. “Rimon!”

  The channel grinned at his patient. “It appears you’ve made some improvement.”

  “Everything tingles,” Sian understated.

  Rimon said, “It’ll probably get worse before it gets better. You’ve a lot of healing to do. I want you to get some sleep.” The channel guided his patient down into slumber. “When they bring you something to eat, eat it, and no nonsense! I’ve put you through a terrible strain.”

  “But Rimon, it tingles!” sighed the weaver. “Tell my wif....” One more sigh and he was deeply asleep, oblivious to the increasing discomfort of his nervous system.

  Lexy signalled Bruce to get Rimon out of the room, whispering, “I’ll take over here. You get some rest. Then explain what you did. I couldn’t zlin anything.”

  Rimon started to reply, but Bruce hustled his channel out of the treatment room. Over his shoulder, Rimon said, “And Garen, nice work. Very nice work. I hardly felt your presence when you were focused on Lexy. No distraction. No irritation. We’ll talk as soon as there’s time. I have some things to say about Gareth that you should know.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” answered Lexy’s Companion.

  Solamar followed them out and closed the door, flashing Garen a grin that was knowingly returned. He was still sorting out the relationships among these people, and it seemed there was more between R
imon and Garen than the Companion’s brother’s death at Clire’s hands. I’ll ask about that sometime.

  The hall was now clear, though the floor was still damp. The instant the door closed behind them, Rimon speared Solamar with a look that could melt stone. “What are you doing here? You are supposed to be sleeping.”

  From the other end of the hall, a new Gen nager joined them. Kahleen, pulling on a heavy sweater and binding back her hair as she walked, heard Rimon’s remark and added, “Solamar, you snuck out without me!”

  Solamar protested, “Snuck?!”

  Rimon pulled Solamar’s attention back. “I thought—I thought I...how could you...you were there! When I was healing Sian, you appeared...wherever that was!”

  Bruce was jarred out of his Companion’s staunch calm by that incoherent remark. “Rimon?”

  “Snuck,” stated Kahleen, going to work on Solamar.

  Rimon impatiently hushed his Companion with a tentacle gesture, still glaring at Solamar.

  Two more words from Rimon and people might start to think Rimon was losing his grip on reality. The Fort could not afford that.

  Solamar blurted, “I must have had a nightmare.” Oh, no I didn’t mean that! “Not your fault, Kahleen, you’ve been terrific. Really, I know you’re still in shock over losing Clire, but I lost my Companion too and have barely slept since the funeral. We all have grieving yet to do. It’s not Need nightmares that you could ward off. It’s the loss.”

  She nodded. “I woke convinced I was late for a meeting with Clire. You’ll grieve after your transfer.” She turned to Rimon. “All the Simes will be having that problem during their first couple of days post-transfer. Don’t consider yourself an exception.”

  “I won’t,” assured Rimon. “I don’t, and neither should you. You shouldn’t be here. You were sent to rest. Val expects people to stick to the schedule.”

  Projecting contrition to hide his satisfaction that he’d changed the subject, Solamar shrugged. “I just woke suddenly and knew I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I came over to see if there was anything I could help with. I zlinned an uproar right through that door, so I went in to try to help. You must have felt me come into the room while you were unconscious. I’m sorry, but it was the smoothest field insertion I could do. Must have seemed like a slap in the face to a Farris.”

  Very, very quietly, Rimon cloaked the two of them in a rigid field that would be shutting Bruce out as well. With his back to everyone else, he accused Solamar in a harsh whisper, “You had my nightmare. I saw you while I was treating Sian.”

  Solamar agreed with a tiny nageric flick, muttering, “We can talk about that later. Privately.” He couldn’t let Rimon think he was going crazy. What a mess.

  Rimon scrutinized Solamar deeply, then dispelled the wall around them and said aloud, “You’re right, you did do your best and it wasn’t at all bad. We’ll practice that insertion technique later and you’ll get the hang of it.”

  Solamar agreed nagerically and said, “You did something remarkable in there if Lexy couldn’t follow it, so the Fort’s record should be written up on that one in detail—now before you forget. Our Freebander is awake, so why don’t you go record what you did while I....”

  Rimon was already striding into Tuzhel’s room leaving Bruce, Solamar and Kahleen to follow.

  Bruce said, “I’ll go break the disappointing news to Xanon that both our Farrises survived as did the patient who is much improved. He’ll be so crushed.”

  Rimon stopped two steps into the room, turned and watched Bruce’s receding back, his mouth hanging open, two handling tentacles frozen in mid-gesture. Solamar, too, contemplated the retreating Gen back, noting the way the Companion wrapped his fields around himself and ignored Rimon. It was the most eloquent picture of polite Gen outrage he had ever seen.

  Kahleen said, “Delri, you should pay more attention to Bruce.”

  It was a diplomatic way of saying, in front of the Raider, that Rimon should not have shut Bruce out of the exchange with Solamar. He was really getting to like Kahleen. She was right. Bruce would have to be included if he could figure out how to recover from this disaster and explain to Rimon what had happened while he was healing Sian. Then, before his transfer with Kahleen, Solamar would have to make time to learn more about her. Maybe Clire wasn’t the only great loss she’d suffered in that battle.

  “I expect you’re right, Kahleen,” Rimon acknowledged. “Bruce will be back soon. Sometimes he needs a bit of time. What Companion wouldn’t?”

  Rimon turned to their patient who was watching them hyperconsciously, zlinning but not seeing or hearing. The Raider was focused on Kahleen, raising intil, the appetite for selyn, by basking in the Gen’s nager. He wasn’t actually in Need thanks to the transfer they had forced into him, but transfer couldn’t satisfy Killust.

  They’re right. He wants to Kill a Companion.

  Solamar focused on supporting Rimon as the Farris sat on the edge of the Raider’s bed, plucking the restraints with a ventral tentacle as he forced the renSime to duoconsciousness, able to zlin and see at the same time. “Want these off?”

  Tuzhel glared at Rimon but his attention was riveted on Kahleen. Rimon swiveled to glance at Solamar.

  “Kahleen,” said Solamar, “you should go on back to sleep.” He focused his Need laced attention on her. She returned it with a warm clasp of support. She had every reason to hate the Raiders for what they’d done to Clire. Still, she couldn’t find it in her heart to focus that resentment on this youth. She was the object of his Killust and returned that interest with overt hostility. If they were to get any work done with the junct, she had to leave.

  With a wry grin, she departed saying, “Call me if I can help.” The door closed gently behind her.

  Solamar hid the surge of admiration that overtook him, but the Farris noticed it. Rimon however was now intent on the Raider before him. Swiftly, he released the restraints that held the youth to the bed frame leaving the junct renSime free to attack. He would, too, despite the pain from his partially healed injuries.

  “Tuzhel, you couldn’t Kill her because you couldn’t take enough selyn fast enough to matter to her. She’s a trained Companion. She has enough selyn to serve this kind of Need.”

  Rimon let his showfield project a channel’s Need. Billows of voracious darkness filled the room with aching, screaming panic, deeper, blacker and darker than anything a Raider would have encountered and utterly paralyzing for the renSime youth. Except for Clire’s Need during that battle. That’s what she’d have zlinned like close up.

  As quickly as it had enveloped the tiny room, the Need was gone. Tuzhel was left pale and sweating.

  Wonder what Lexy made of that? thought Solamar swallowing hard against the echo of Need induced within his own secondary system. He hadn’t moved swiftly enough to keep that nageric surge from spilling across the corridor.

  Now he knew Rimon had wanted him there to control the spread of such nageric disturbance, and he’d nearly failed. Surely the Farris woman had felt the surge of Need he hadn’t blocked even through the two doors separating them. An image of her being startled sprang to his mind’s eye and he found himself smiling at the closed door.

  Immediately, the door opened again and Bruce sliced neatly into the room’s ambient, moving to stand behind Rimon with apology written all over his nager.

  Tuzhel sat up and ran both hands and his handling tentacles over his shaved head, shaking and not just from the pain in his half-healed tendons.

  Solamar thought, Rimon is making a big mistake here. At the same moment, Tuzhel whispered, “BanSha says channels can do anything. I didn’t believe him. But he’s right. He says he’s going to be one. I want to be one too.”

  Rimon pried the clutching hands loose and nudged the youth’s chin up, meeting his eyes, gently engaging his nager. “A person is born a channel, or not a channel. It’s not something you can choose. You can choose to stay with us, to learn a trade, to live among Gens and
never Kill again. No Sime in this Fort is allowed to Kill. It’s a hard choice that only the bravest among us can make, especially after what you’ve been through the first few days of your life as an adult Sime. That would make the choice much harder. But if you really want it, we’ll help you choose not to Kill.”

  Solamar heard Rimon’s unspoken, and maybe even survive it. Disjunction for this youth would take at least six to eight months, and the last few months would be horrible agony until he broke the addictive craving for the Kill.

  Eyes narrowed, the junct accused in a heavily accented, mixed patois, “This Fort a-gonna be smashed flat in the next raid, ain’it?”

  “I doubt that,” answered Rimon honestly. “Though many of us may die by violence before the town folks return to exterminate the Raiders. But that’s only one reason Raiders don’t live long. To Kill so frequently, you give up all the best years of your life. To gain some of them back, you must face the risks.”

  “Tuzhel,” said Solamar, “BanSha didn’t tell you about what happens when a Sime who has survived by Killing tries to live by taking selyn from a channel?”

  Rimon eyed Solamar but zlinned Tuzhel’s reaction. Clearly the youth was as ignorant of disjunction as he must have been of changeover before it hit him and he matured into a Sime almost overnight after growing up expecting to be Gen like his parents.

  Rimon turned back to their patient. “If we let you go and you return to the Raider band you were with, you will be dead within five years at the most. Probably you will die within two years. Isn’t it true that the Raiders you have met are young? Have they ever told you of someone they knew who was more than six years past changeover?”

  Tuzhel’s eyes were fixed on Rimon now, and he was thinking hard. His head moved in a silent negative.

  “How old do you think I am?” asked Rimon.

  “Old. Older tha’ I cn count.”

  Rimon held out both hands, with all eight handling tentacles extended. “Here’s how many years since I was born.” He closed his hands and retracted tentacles, then opened them again, then closed them and opened his right hand with handling tentacles extended. Closed that and held out three tentacles. “Do you know how many years that is?”