Unto Zeor, Forever

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Digen didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He knew what he had felt when Imil had wanted to trade for him. Utter coldness.

  Digen’s agitation finally got through to Im’ran, who recalled himself sharply to his duties. “I’m sorry,” he said, laying one finger along a lateral sheath to feel the bulge of the ronaplin gland. “Whew! You’re so good at hiding it, I forget and give you a hard time as if you were normal. Just lie down here and relax so I can get to work.”

  The fanir’s nager beat gently through Digen, taking command. With an effort, Digen let it happen. It was critical that he be in just the right psychological state of Need for this transfer, and the blocks inside him were so thick—two years thick—that it took a lot to wear them away. Im’ran had a very special feel for the work, and within minutes Digen’s intil factor was soaring higher than it had in a year.

  By the time Im’ran took him up to the transfer suite, Digen was counting the seconds until the appointed time. They had to hit the optimum minute, plus or minus two or three, both for themselves and in order to stay in phase with the Controller’s charted plans for the future transfers. Five minutes relief this month could mean ten minutes agony next month—it wasn’t worth it.

  As they came into the Sime Center’s transfer wing, Digen found that Im’ran had reserved one of the larger rooms for them, complete with two contour lounges, a monitor’s chair—which, Digen realized gratefully, wouldn’t be required this time—its own shower, and a kitchenette. By now Digen was in no condition to appreciate nuances, but he did note at a glance that the rooms had been newly stocked with everything he might require and cleared of everything he was allergic to.

  He found, after the effort of the walk, that he was again holding himself tightly against anticipation. He forced himself to relax, to let his intil factor soar uncontrolled, depending on Im’ran completely. And, he realized, he could depend on Im’ran—that was what was making him tremble so with a mixture of anticipation and, yes, dread.

  Stretched out on the lounge, eyes closed, yielding himself up to hyperconsciousness, Digen perceived his own body as a dark blot consuming selyn. Im’ran, puttering around the sink, was an unbearable brightness from which the whole room seemed to catch fire and glow; every tiny, precise movement of Im’ran’s hands as he prepared medications they might require registered on Digen with a kind of tactile thrill. But there was also a strain in the Gen.

  Im’ran was talking.

  Digen willed himself sternly back to duoconsciousness. Im’ran was saying, “…want this one to be absolutely perfect for you. It should bring you completely back to normal.”

  “Im’, let’s not try to do it all at once. It’s too much, without qualifying you.”

  Im’ran’s voice was tense. Digen could feel it in his own larynx with a sort of sensual contact peculiar to Need. “Digen, don’t let your nerve fail now. I know it’s hard for you to surrender transfer control—unnatural, even—but you don’t want to have to go through all this over again, do you?”

  The last weeks flashed through Digen’s mind. The time, in his room at the hospital, when he had lost his temper, hurling a tube of ronaplin inhibitor cream across the bath room, awakening Hogan. The time when his whole left side had gone numb and he would have fallen had Joel not been there to lean on. The time he’d accidentally fallen asleep on his bed in the hospital and had a nightmare about his years of convalescence, only to awaken and find it was really happening. Afraid even to take a deep breath for fear of setting off a convulsion, Digen had coached Hogan into using the weird little applicator to place a medicated lozenge well up his lateral sheath. He had been only half an hour late going on duty. Then there had been the time his ronaplin glands had been so swollen from Im’ran’s therapy that he’d been unable to fasten the retainers. He’d used so much ronaplin inhibitor that he’d been weak and nauseated for two days afterward.

  He’d been able to get through it all only because working in the emergency ward was really not much of a challenge. The surgical service, on the other hand, would be demanding.

  “No, Im’, I can’t go through that all over again. So, you win. Go for broke. But if you’re too slow, you know what I’ll have to do.”

  “You do what you must, Digen. I can pick up your signals—if anything happens.”

  Digen was sure Im’ran could read the code of tiny pressures and movements used to communicate during transfer, but he was only a Gen—his reaction time might be too slow. Grimly, Digen said, “I just hope Hayashi’s machines have taught you the job, because if not…”

  Finishing his mixing, Im’ran sat beside Digen, taking his hands. He shut his eyes in concentration, moving his fingers up the lateral sheaths, applying delicate pressure to the lateral orifices. “How’s this?”

  Digen’s universe titled. He had spent so many years compensating for the slow filtering of selyn across the scar tissue that when the impulses were fed in already compensated, he felt off center. He caught and righted himself, swearing appreciatively about fanir talents. He felt himself begin to laugh, but it was somebody else who laughed. He was frightened. Cold and frightened. It was somebody else who was cold, dead black inside with selyn shutdown. He counted as a triumph each second of not drawing warmth.

  Somewhere above the situation, he knew what had happened. For weeks he had firmly instructed his Needing body to wait for transfer—to wait and wait forever. It was easy to fast when there was no aroma of food. It was easy to freeze to death when there was no warmth nearby. Deprivation would go on forever and ever and he could endure—and then Im’ran had touched him with a nager carefully compensated for the scar.

  The hysterical joy of that had hit him all at once. He had made it, he had waited long enough—and then, wiping out the joy. the dread that it wouldn’t work, that there still might not be satisfaction this time either. Inside, his body had shut down, dropped all selyn use to basal and below, edging into attrition. There was no physical reason for the shutdown. He wasn’t anywhere near his limit yet. It was just….

  Just too bloodyshen long! Bad transfers had become a habit.

  Gradually he found himself fading back to duoconsciousness. He was still lying on the lounge, muscles clenched against one another in spasms of shivering, even though, he realized, the lounge’s heaters were on high and Im’ran had covered him with a blanket.

  He hissed through clenched teeth, “Trautholo—establish trautholo!” Im’ran shook his head. “Digen, no. It’s too early.” Digen heard Im’ran saying words about dependency and he knew the Gen was right, but he also knew that he couldn’t endure much more of this.

  Through clenched teeth, words puffed out of him with each spasm. “Must—you’re—stronger now.” He fought for control to plead reasonably, but it was no use. “Demand—demand you—” And then something broke.

  Digen’s precarious internal balance disintegrated. With his primary system low in selyn, it didn’t have the strength to control the harmonics bursting loose in the secondary system, and the vibration racked Digen. Dimly, Digen heard himself begging, “Im’—Im’, help me—please help me—please—”

  Im’ran was saying something—distantly—something about a train. But Digen’s inner strength was spent. Life slipped through his weakening grasp and he couldn’t even beg anymore. There was just a distant whimper.

  And then the fanir’s nager caught him up strongly and firmly, gently slipping into trautholo. By stages, Im’ran dragged Digen’s torn, shuddering awareness into a precise, dead-true Tecton rhythm, welding the two of them together with a perfectly balanced selyur nager. Digen’s inner flows revived and his stiffened insides yielded to life.

  On the very edge of transfer, they rested. For the first time in longer than Digen cared to remember, there was no tension in him anywhere, no taut, terrible awareness of voluntary denial.

  “Shenoni!” he said, breathing heavily. “Don’t move, Im’!”

  “I know,” said Im’ran, his voice professionally neutral. �
��I won’t shen you, Digen. Relax. It won’t be too much longer.”

  Digen knew to the fraction of a second how long it would be, but he no longer cared. Like this, he felt he could wait indefinitely. If ever I die of attrition, he thought, this is the way I want to do it. At peace, at certainty, at rest like this, Digen sensed distantly that there would be a price for the luxury, and that it might be a terrible price. But after the transfer, he felt, he would be strong enough to face any price without flinching. Any price—for this.

  Strength returning, he said with sudden insight, “This is what you’ve been dreading, isn’t it?”

  Im’ran nodded. “We’re going to end up with a dependency I hate to think about.”

  “Oh, Im’, what have I done to you? I gave you such a hard time over Jesse that now you’ve become afraid to do— What has to be done?”

  Im’ran shrugged. “It’s done. There’s nothing more to say.

  “At least our basal metabolic rates are outside the limits for a selyur nager lock, so there’s no danger of us slipping into an orhuen.”

  Im’ran looked away.

  The orhuen, only slightly less powerful than the lortuen, occurred between a channel and Donor of the same sex and involved just the single bond of transfer dependency. Nevertheless, it was just as firmly discouraged by the Tecton as was lortuen itself. And for the same reasons. An orhuen pair had to be taken off the roles.

  “It’s safe for us, Im’.” But the Gen just focused his eyes on some object and concentrated on holding his fields steady for Digen. So Digen said, “If it bothers you that much I can mitigate the resultant dependency quite a bit if you’ll let me control the transfer.”

  Im’ran pulled himself back to business. “No, no, I’m the therapist here. It’s my job and I can do it.”

  “I can see that this is tearing you apart. I can’t let—”

  “I can do my job,” Im’ran insisted doggedly. Then, with an effort, he summoned a little of the bantering tone they’d shared in the glade. “You want it to come down to a contest of wills? Ilyana would say you haven’t a chance. I’m the Gen here, and I control the transfer. Digen, yield to the situation. You may not have another chance like this for a long time.”

  It was true. The kind of transfer where the Gen dominated the selyn flow was permitted only in therapy. It was considered very dangerous, as it was too easy for a channel to fall into the habit of trusting Gens to protect themselves. That was the way Gens got killed, and Simes went junct.

  Im’ran peeled the blankets off Digen and turned off the heaters. “Better?”

  “Hmm. All right, Im’, if you’re so desperate to get it all over with in one try, dependency or no, then we’ll do it that way. There’s no real harm in it. We’ll have plenty of time to work ourselves out of it. I’m still on your therapy list for another four weeks.”

  “Digen—” started Im’ran, then broke off. “Digen, will you promise me something? After—after we finish this, will you promise to go talk to Mora? As soon as you can?”

  Ah! “So that’s it. Im’, Mora and I talked it over, just like I promised you the day I helped Mora qualify Dane Rizdel. I thought surely she would have told you. She’ll get what she wants, as soon as I’m able whether you’ve pledged Zeor by then or not.” Then it struck Digen. “Is….” Is that why you want to finish this in one try? To get me sexually active again? It had been so long since Digen had been clean enough of Need to find his body sexually active that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to want a woman. He knew that even under the best of conditions it wouldn’t happen soon. He’d have to get through enormous posttransfer emotional purges before his nerves would be clear enough for that.

  Im’ran had followed his thought, and his nager congealed with an anger he refused to acknowledge lest it hurt his patient. “I looked it up. I know it’s been over two and a half years since you logged a completed posttransfer catharsis—in my professional opinion, that puts you on the critical list. In fact, I find it hard to believe you’re still alive!”

  “I was celibate for four years once, and survived it.”

  “Don’t put on the tough man act with me, Digen. We’re too close for that.”

  Digen took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly, running through a relaxation sequence. “I’m sorry, Im’. I guess I’m just—too scared to think straight.”

  “I guess we both are. Just promise me you’ll talk to Mora first chance. It’ll make me feel better.”

  “All right. I promise. But I wish you’d tell me what’s eating at you so much.”

  “It—it’s not—important right now. Scoot over a bit,” he said, squeezing down on the lounge beside Digen. “Wake me when it’s time.”

  They had a good forty minutes to go yet. Digen knew that no one would ever believe his Donor had fallen asleep on him in trautholo. Yet Im’ran did doze, not exactly asleep but relaxed completely. Before long the deep strong pulse of the fanir had relaxed Digen into a similar state, and Digen realized that this was why Im’ran had done it, to bring Digen to optimum level for transfer. His admiration for his Donor redoubled, but he was too comfortable to think very much. Unfocused, wholly content, he rested at Im’ran’s side.

  And then Im’ran was sitting closely beside him on the lounge, holding him in transfer position, bending to make the lip contact, still keeping them in that state of total relaxation. The barriers melted as if they had never been. The bright warmth suffused into Digen with almost no sense of selyn movement at all.

  The flows up the left laterals held exact balance with the flows up the right laterals, neatly in phase until they reached the vriamic node, merged, and plunged down his body, awakening and warming successive nodes.

  As Digen came to awareness, more and more he felt a sense of suffocation, a strangling, choking panic that engulfed him.

  Too slow! He’s too slow! Frantically signaling to Im’ran, Digen systematically shunted selyn into deeper storage nerves to lower his external field and increase the rate of selyn flow by increasing the gradient between them. All relaxation was lost; the cold, aching Need filled him anew, overpowering him.

  He began to draw selyn actively, voraciously, though he felt Im’ran’s barriers raised against him just enough to impede the flow. Im’ran failed to respond to Digen’s signals.

  Suddenly Digen was cold certain he was going into abort.

  Digen wrenched control from the Gen and savagely increased his draw speed, despite the searing flash of pain that shot through the Gen’s nerves. At the first touch of that familiar pain, Im’ran went totally passive, his barriers finally going flat as he yielded all control to Digen. Together, then, they fought the abort reflex, Im’ran’s resistance, and the pain it had triggered in the Gen.

  When the slamming reflex of shen teetered and began to ram home despite what either of them could do, when neither of them could endure another instant of half-triggered reflex, something changed. It was as if a veil inside Im’ran had been ripped away by Digen’s rough draw. Suddenly Digen knew: He can see!

  And then Im’ran was in charge again, precisely matching his resistance to the exact rate at which Digen wanted to draw. Faster and faster, until the selyn transfer rate peaked at Digen’s lower threshold of satisfaction, and the sense of strangling panic gave way in Digen to a soaring satisfaction. Long-cramped systems stretched out to maximum in a total involvement.

  He’s with me! The Gen was in near-perfect resonance, amplifying and feeding back the entire experience beat after beat, until, for Digen, for just one moment, it was as if his own body were pulsing with the creation of selyn rising right out of the nucleus of each cell in his body, and for Im’ran it was as if his own Need had been relieved at long last. Neither knew or cared who was controlling now.

  At the very apex, an alarm rang in the back of Digen’s consciousness. He terminated the transfer then, a bare one per cent short of repletion. Not quite perfect this time, but he now had a four-plus Donor, and Im’ran�
��s capacity would grow. At the next transfer they would have the dependency whipped, and it would be perfect. He could wait now. Knowing that, he could wait.

  He came out of hyperconsciousness to feel Im’ran relinquish the lip contact, letting Digen’s systems begin the slow decline into Need again as he dismantled the lateral contacts.

  Then, without warning, Im’ran pitched forward, unconscious. Digen moved with Sime swiftness to catch him. I burned him! I could have killed him! That shock revived him enough to stagger to his feet. He found two glasses with liberal doses of fosebine already measured. He had to cling to the sink, dizzy with the recovery transients coursing through him. Somehow he got the water into the glasses, and after what seemed like years he reeled back to the lounge where Im’ran lay draped over the edge and struggling feebly to get to his feet to help Digen.

  Digen propped the Gen up and made him swallow again and again. The fanir’s strong, steady nager was weak enough to frighten Digen. He heard himself whispering, in a wild mixture of English and Simelan, “Im’, you—you—don’t dare die on me, not now!” He shook me Gen. “Im’, listen to me, we made it! You did it! We did it!”

  Im’ran came to a focus on Digen, reached to take the glass from Digen’s tentacles, cupping them all between his fingers. He sat up shakily and gulped down the potion without even making a sour face. “I’m all right, Digen. Nothing to worry about, honest. I’ve had worse just practicing outfunctions. What about you? Did I hurt you?”

  Digen, seeing Im’ran’s field strength and coordination return, slumped. From somewhere came an unaccustomed prayer: Dear God, thank you. Thank you. And, to his own shame, he knew it wasn’t all relief that Im’ran was safe, but something more selfish, more personal.

  It’s over, the waiting, the aborts, the chronic cellular starvation, the whole Donor shortage for me is over. With Im’ran every third or fourth month, Digen knew, he could survive, he could do anything he had to, even surgery. It’s over. I’m going to be all right.

  Deep inside, a wall crumbled. He let the tears come, shameless before Im’ran, surprised that it had held off this long. Ordinarily, the moment transfer was completed, all the emotions that were blocked off during Need surged back, leaving the Sime highly unstable for hours, sometimes for days.