“Count tentacles too?”
“Well, yes, that’s how we count.”
After some cogitation, he said a number in Genlan that Solamar didn’t know, but it seemed the youth could count, just not in Simelan. “That’s older than my Da....”
The ambient shattered, but Solamar held the fields in the room rock steady, still braced against any unexpected move the Farris might make. Rimon controlled the ambient effortlessly while Solamar marveled at the recovery the man had made in just a few minutes after hurling all his strength into healing Sian. Apparent recovery, he reminded himself. He knew he couldn’t zlin what was really going on inside a Farris, and Rimon was better than most at using his showfield to mask his inner turmoil.
“You Killed your father when you changed over?” prompted Rimon, knowing the answer.
Great, welling shame, horror filled the room and Rimon let it billow uncontrolled. Solamar followed his lead, not understanding, but sure that this junct would never choose the Fort lifestyle after being treated like this.
Bruce came forward and grabbed the scrawny, completely shaven young man and swept him into a warm embrace filled with Gen love. “Oh, that must have been horrible,” he muttered, but his voice and nager carried immense sympathy. “It wasn’t your fault, Tuzhel. We understand how these things happen by accident.”
He held him, rocking back and forth as sobs burst from the young throat. “Weren’ no accident. H-he, he hit me with a shovel. He wanna kill me...I...I...I didn’t want to die! I should-a, but I couldn’ wanna....”
Nobody in the room was about to correct his Simelan. He’d learn soon enough the difference between the Kill and murder.
Bruce murmured all the right things, then said, “Here you will never have to want to die, Tuzhel. Here you can survive, do good and be glad to live. There are a number of people here who had similar experiences. We’re always ready to take in young people who get to us in time. And you are in time, Tuzhel. You can live.”
That was more the message Solamar thought might work with a young junct. But the youth was having none of it. “I want to Kill you!” He squirmed trying to get a transfer grip on the Gen, but Bruce and Rimon manipulated the fields to create the illusion of shifting, moving contact points that kept eluding the junct until he gave up.
Bruce hugged him again. “No, you don’t want to Kill me. You just want to satisfy your selyn Need,” he contradicted, then looked over the youth’s head at Rimon. “Nothing I could do would provide that for you. Besides, right now you’re not in Need.” He rose and backed away now that the storm of grief had abated in the typical First Year Sime’s way of rapid adjustments.
Circling back to his position behind Rimon, he muttered a quick apology and returned to his primary job of keeping his attention on Rimon, letting the channel use his Gen selyn fields to work the ambient.
Rimon was eyeing Solamar again, speculation rife in that gaze but barely zlinnable in the ambient. “You up for a little demonstration, Solamar?”
Not sure what Rimon wanted, Solamar grinned confidently. Rimon zlinned his uncertainty and returned a serene confidence in Solamar’s abilities. To the renSime youth, the ambient nager was a steady, evenly glowing field punctuated lightly by Bruce’s throbbing glow.
As any Sime during the first year after changeover, the youth was easily distracted into studying selyn fields. Obviously, Rimon intended to use that trait for instructional purposes, but Solamar couldn’t follow his thinking. What could you say to a Raider who knew his compatriots would be back soon, that nothing could be gained by the struggle to disjunct except an ugly death at Raider hands?
Rimon moved away from the bed with an air of judicious consideration then rounded on Solamar with a devilish grin and spoke looking directly into Solamar’s eyes. “Tuzhel, zlin our fields closely now. I’ll pretend to be you, at the final moments of the disjunction process. Bruce will be a Gen that you’d want very much to Kill. Solamar will be the channel who is ready to give you transfer, and in the end, he will give you transfer.”
I will? Solamar thought very quietly to himself as he returned the confident grin of the Farris channel who wasn’t fooled for a second. This can’t possibly work. What kid would choose to go through such agony for nothing? Nevertheless, he nodded and took a position apart from Bruce as the Farris shifted the fields in the room totally captivating the First Year renSime’s attention.
Smoothly, Rimon’s showfield began to mimic a junct renSime in Need, voracious Need for Killbliss not just selyn, a Need unsatisfied for months.
Cooperatively, Bruce put all his attention on Rimon’s imitation renSime and began to offer him transfer, as if he were ready to serve his channel’s Need. Solamar brought his showfield up to create the impression of a Gen offering transfer to that imitation-renSime as any channel would prepare to serve a real renSime’s Need.
Rimon responded by precisely mimicking the rising intil, the sharp, voracious intensity of a junct in Need hunting a Kill. Bruce’s fields far out-shone Solamar’s, even though Bruce and Rimon were more than ten days from transfer. Still from the renSime’s perspective, Bruce must have seemed as if he contained all the selyn in the world.
To play his part in this charade, Solamar had to remain the lesser enticement, offering a mere channel’s transfer, not a true Gen Kill.
Rimon upped the power and Bruce followed his lead with that amazing talent sometimes displayed by the Companions of the truly powerful channels. Solamar held steady while Rimon demonstrated the agonizing moment of decision that every disjuncting renSime had to go through.
Disjunction was not so much contained in the months of increasing, agonizing dissatisfaction with channel’s transfer, the intensifying lust for the Kill, but in that final moment of choice at the end of all that suffering. Rimon had obviously taken many juncts through that moment and knew its every nuance.
Tuzhel, wholly lost in the selyn fields, moved closer, kneeling on the bed, pushing toward the scenario unfolding before him, attention flicking back and forth between Bruce and Solamar in time with Rimon’s enactment.
Rimon moved toward Bruce, letting his very genuine Need for this particular Gen show through, but giving it a distinctive twist, the Need for Gen pain, agony and final deathscream, for the pure egobliss of the Kill.
Rimon reached for Bruce who offered his arms for the Sime’s transfer grip, letting his deep-seated yearning for that transfer slowly turn to horror, revulsion and then terror as Rimon’s tentacles touched him. It was just the response a junct craved from a Gen.
Solamar, aware the Raider could lunge for Bruce at any moment, did nothing but hold steady, being the channel he had never been raised to be, never been trained to be. That was a secret he had to keep from Rimon Farris, somehow, despite all the rest he’d have to tell him. So he threw himself into his role, dismissing his entire personal identity and becoming the channel Rimon thought him to be.
Rimon’s attention flicked over Solamar, zlinning his fields. Then he lunged two steps toward Bruce, hesitated, then threw himself at Solamar.
Solamar braced one foot behind him, brought selyn up just as if giving a transfer and took Rimon’s weight as their lateral tentacles entwined and Rimon went for the fifth transfer point, lip to lip. As the two of them went over backwards, Rimon actually drew selyn, his showfield projecting a relaxed, beautiful satisfaction, not Killbliss at all, but something better. The transfer completed before Solamar’s shoulders hit the floor and Lexy flew into the room blowing the faked fields to smithereens.
“Dad!”
Rimon laughed, a free jolly laugh, throaty and relaxed, just as a newly disjuncted renSime might laugh. He looked up at Lexy and swept the fields back into the neutral wall of opalescence it had been before the demonstration.
Tuzhel sat back on his heels amidst the blankets, duoconscious again, staring at Rimon. “That wasn’t real.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Rimon. “It was just very close. That’s what it would b
e like, Tuzhel, hard, and very much a free choice that you and you alone would have to make.”
Bruce pulled Rimon to his feet, shifting his own fields and attention to help Rimon adjust his fields, and Solamar rested the back of his head on the rug wishing Kahleen were there but feasting his eyes on Lexy from this odd perspective, zlinning her take it all in and adjust to the lack of a real emergency. There is one gorgeous woman with a spirit like solar fire.
He rolled over and got to his feet reassuring her, “Rimon decided to demonstrate disjunction crisis for Tuzhel.” He turned to the youth. “Did a pretty good job being you, don’t you think?” He held his breath.
Tuzhel nodded, “I wouldn’ never have to Kill? I wouldn’ feel like I have to?”
Rimon said with relentless honesty, “Maybe sometimes for a few minutes you might have that feeling. It would go away in the time you could hold your breath. Need just wouldn’t ordinarily feel the same as it does to you now. But I’m not going to lie to you. Disjunction is a hard thing, maybe the hardest thing a Sime can do. If you were a few months older, you wouldn’t be able to survive it. So you must choose now.”
Tuzhel looked at Garen who had come in behind Lexy and closed the door. Even with Tuzhel kneeling on the narrow bed, the room was crowded. Tuzhel slowly nodded. He was scared, but he was game. “Yes.” Something fundamental had changed in this lost youth. It wasn’t a logical decision. It was more like a leap of faith.
More than a little amazed, Solamar let his genuine pleasure show. The Farrises are just not like any other kind of channel. He’d known that but he’d never actually known it. What he’d inadvertently done to Rimon while trying to get a transfer into Tuzhel the first time might have done irreversible damage to the Farris. He’s seeing ghosts, he’s starting to work on the non-material body of his patients, and now he’s struck this boy’s soul. What next?
CHAPTER SIX
CONSEQUENCES
“Bruce, I’m sorry,” said Rimon the instant Tuzhel’s door closed leaving them in the hall. “Kahleen was very upset with me....” More like furious, he thought, adding, “She was right to be.”
Lexy, exuding approval of her father, said, “I’ll go ask Val to assign someone to Tuzhel and see what she has for me next.”
Garen started after Lexy. Rimon stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and held the Gen’s eyes as he said, “You’ve raised a fine son, Garen. BanSha was the key that turned Tuzhel around. Your son will make a wonderful channel for this Fort. Go tell Lexy that, and see she gets some rest.”
Garen beamed. “BanSha will be a big help once he changes over. His mother would have been proud.” He took off after Lexy double-time.
Rimon turned back to Bruce, starting his apology again. “Look, I never meant to shut you....”
“No, it was my fault,” replied Bruce with a shake of his head. He explained to Solamar as if Rimon were not right there, “Delri and I have been working together almost since his changeover. I just....” he shrugged, “well something’s going on and Delri’s not talking to me.”
Solamar offered, “I’m sure Rimon will fill you in on everything that’s been happening.”
“Rimon certainly would,” said Rimon, “if Rimon had the least idea what has been happening!”
Bruce laughed and explained to Solamar, “Strange, mysterious and unprecedented things always happen around Delri, Aipen...Aipensha and Lexy.” He took another deep breath. “Even Clire. Every once in a while the events are just new skills arriving accidentally.” He turned to Rimon with a sigh. “I miss Aipensha but Lexy is nearly mad with grief. Poor Garen. You don’t want my nager spreading doom and gloom as well as annoyance all over the place.”
Rimon had no answer for that. His own behavior had edged into the unconscionable and here his Companion, his dearest friend, was making excuses for him. Gens often did that. He met Solamar’s gaze, exchanged Sime-to-Sime shrugs and Bruce chuckled.
At the end of the hall, a cart came squeaking into view, steaming lovely food aromas into the early morning air. Rimon, despite Need clamping down on his guts, found that he was hungry. No, Bruce is hungry. I could eat.
BanSha and one of the older girls named Bekka stopped the cart and began distributing trays to the patients still bed bound. Bekka was a sturdy child with brown hair and eyes and a soft gentle smile, always ready to help.
Rimon said, “Bruce, you’re hungry. And Solamar, you’re on shift now while I’m supposed to go rest.” As he spoke another channel and her Companion came down the hall toward them with purposeful strides. “Isn’t that one of your Tanhara channels?” asked Rimon, reminding himself he had a lot of people he had to get to know.
“Yes. I’ll brief her on Sian and Tuzhel’s progress and then see what Val has on the schedule for me, probably Collectorium duty this morning, Dispensary this afternoon.”
Solamar strode toward the channel Rimon didn’t know, grateful to escape. Rimon could zlin the fatigue Solamar was hiding well. He was keenly aware that he’d surprised Solamar by actually taking a transfer from him, even if it had been only half the selyn a renSime would demand. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
But it had worked beyond Rimon’s wildest hopes. Tuzhel wanted to join the Fort now. Later, when disjunction became arduous, it might be a different story.
“Come on, Bruce, I’ll answer your questions over breakfast.” He nerved himself up to telling his Companion about seeing ghosts and then imagining Solamar. Everyone knew Rimon’s father Zeth had died ranting insanely about ghosts. Bruce would never look at him the same again. It has to be done, he told himself grimly.
He paused to offer a few words of praise to BanSha and zlin the boy carefully for signs of Changeover. There was nothing yet, so he led Bruce downstairs and out through the channels’ on-duty sleeping quarters. They grabbed cloaks from the stand by the door, and using the exit at the far end of the wing, they made the short dash across the open in howling winds and blinding snow.
They entered the Dining Hall through the hot, steamy and bustling kitchen. Running around the clock, they served breakfast, dinner, snacks all the time.
As soon as they settled at a table in the corner of the dining hall, Benart came over with an armload of reports, chattering at top speed.
Inventories had been completed, and though they had a good selyn supply, they were going to run short of food before spring crops came in. Water and sanitation was already a problem but progress had been made on the latrines despite the snow.
Parties had been out cutting new logs for the larger wall, as well as firewood. Every hearth was now ablaze against the intense chill that had set in, yet most rooms were cold. Some of the new post holes had been dug before the heavy snow arrived. During the blizzard, the carpenters focused on carving new nails and bolts from the hardest woods, training the older children in the art. Wool they had intended to trade was being spun for winter cloaks, gloves, socks and blankets.
Space was a very serious problem. You could not keep so many renSimes packed so close to so many Gens without expecting an incident at some point.
Management decisions would have to be made, and enforced, and that meant a duly elected Council.
“Xanon has been talking to his Fort Butte followers,” said Benart glumly. “You’d have thought that your healing Sian after Xanon gave up on him would count for something. Sian is going to walk again, isn’t he?”
Rimon speared Bruce with a glare. “That remains to be seen. He’s definitely recovering. He clearly wasn’t as badly injured as it first seemed, as usual with nerve injuries.”
Benart raised his eyebrows at Bruce.
Bruce said, “We’ll see better tomorrow, but I think he’s going to be able to weave again.”
“May take some retraining, possibly some rebuilding of the looms, but I do expect he’ll be able to weave if not walk, and might still be able to play the shiltpron,” said Rimon. He thought it would come out better than that. I have no idea what I did or how!
“Well, Delri, even with Sian improving, the Butte people are listening to Xanon and talking to everyone. They even have some Fort Unity and Fort Veritt people agreeing. Now Xanon is saying that because you are such a good channel, you think you’re good at everything and can tell everyone what to do about everything.
“Lots of people are assuming the food shortfall means we can’t all survive, so this Fort has to decide how to deploy our resources. They don’t trust Fort Rimon people to make decisions because we think you, Lexy and...well you two should have the final say. So they want a new Council without any of us, or our Church of the Unity people, on it. The Unity folks are behind you like a solid wall no matter which Fort they come from. But there’s no Church left in Butte, hasn’t been for a generation.”
Bruce said, “I don’t like this “Butte People” “Unity People,” “Veritt People” versus “us.” We can’t survive in factions.”
Rimon nodded. “True, but we will survive. I don’t know why Xanon can’t see that while the other Forts have failed, Fort Rimon has not only survived, but prospered. We’re strained right now with the influx of all these people, but we were on track to manage the winter just fine until Tanhara arrived.”
Rimon knew he had made a fateful error when he let a judgment call come down to a vote, a political decision about whether a fact was true or not. You can’t vote on facts. If Clire had gotten the transfer he’d wanted her to have, when he wanted her to have it, she wouldn’t have Killed during that raid. With her, their chances of surviving would have been excellent. “What’s Garen saying? Clire is carrying his child.” Not mine. It won’t be mine.
The Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve Page 10