Unto Zeor, Forever

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Very quietly Digen said, “But you can still be a doctor, and a good one, too.”

  Sometime later the phone rang. Digen took it, muttering softly into the mouthpiece. He changed his clothes and went out the door, saying, “I’ll cover for you. Come on down when you feel better.” But Hogan didn’t move, barely registering Digen’s voice.

  Torn, Digen forced himself to go, knowing he could do little good for Hogan at that point.

  In the following days Hogan clung to his work, grimly determined to see his internship through, but no longer talking about a surgical residency. In time, some of his old buoyancy returned. The solid walls of courage, so much a part of Hogan’s daily armor, had won out over the pain and fear. At least on the surface.

  One rosy afternoon later on in the fall, Digen was taking a break out on their private patch of roof when Hogan came clattering into the room, calling, “Digen?”

  “Here. It’s summer again for a few minutes. Come enjoy while it lasts.”

  Hogan clambered, feet and elbows, out the window and tossed down a blanket to sit on. He was more animated than Digen had seen him in a long time. “Digen, did you know they’ve scheduled Ditana for surgery again?”

  “No when?”

  “Oh not until spring, at least. They want to give her a few months of physical therapy to build her up. But they think they may be able to restore her legs, at least partially!”

  “Marvelous,” said Digen, sarcastically. “Have they discussed this with her?”

  “Not yet. I just overheard Thornton talking with Branoff in the coffeeshop. They figure she’ll go for it if you’re into it. Rumor has it that Thornton is putting you to work under that orthopedics resident—what’s his name, McBryde—just so you’ll be ready when they do her. Some people have all the luck. I’ll probably be on the internal wards by then. Or—obstetrics.”

  He’s completely forgotten the injunction. Dita is an in-Territory citizen. How am I going to get out of this?

  “Speaking of which,” continued Hogan, oblivious to Digen’s sudden gravity, “Skip’s mother was admitted a few hours ago to the OB floor—miscarriage. And guess what?”

  Automatically Digen said, “What?”

  “She’s not really Skip’s mother! I got a look at her chart, and she was never pregnant the year he was born!”

  Digen sat up, abruptly alert. “Does he know?”

  “I don’t know. Rumor has it Mrs. Cudney’s younger sister ran away in-Territory with some Sime and came home eight months’ pregnant and died giving premature birth to Skip—which explains why his family abandoned him to Lankh so readily. He’s just an unwanted bastard, poor kid.”

  Digen was getting to his feet, hastily brushing the gravel off himself.

  “Where you going?”

  “Just keep talking,” said Digen. “How did his mother die?”

  “Who knows—it’s just rumor—”

  Digen was already in the room, clamping on retainers and heading for the door. Hogan called, “Where you going?”

  “I haven’t seen Skip in almost three days, what with Lankh hanging around all the time. If I’d only known—shen!” Digen swore as one of the catches on his retainers jammed, slowing him down. But in that time Hogan caught up.

  “Known what, Digen?”

  “All orphans are suspect—you of all people should know that! And he told us—weeks ago, he told us he was going into changeover, and I just chalked it up to overhearing you and me talking that time—remember? But he’s convinced, and he’s still convinced—and that’s the way it is with channels, you just know, deep down inside, beyond all logic or argument, you just know it’s going to happen.”

  “Channels? Digen—”

  “What?” Digen stopped by the door, grabbing his jacket and a worn notebook he used for scut work.

  “Digen something new happened this morning with Skip. He’s spiking a fever again, vomiting, complains of vertigo, the works—could be just another infection, could be—”

  Digen ripped the door open. “Coming?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TURNABOUT

  Channels tended to go through the sequence of changeover a lot faster than renSimes.

  When Digen and Hogan arrived at Skip Cudney’s room it was already too late. Panting, they hung in the doorway for one timeless instant. In the middle of the room, Lankh’s treatment cart was overturned, electric circuits burning, smoking. Beside the cart, crumpled in a heap, was a man’s body—one of the nurses. One of his outstretched arms clearly showed transfer burns.

  In the far corner, Skip, tentacles extended, was in the act of leaping at Lankh, who was backed against the wall, terrified by the first of his patients to attack him.

  Digen bounded across the bed and dived at Skip, his outstretched hands closing on Skip’s shoulders just as the young Sime began to draw selyn. Even through the retainers, there was no mistaking the unfathomable depths of selyn hunger of a new channel. The boy had killed one Gen, and still it raged in his fragile body. A junct channel!

  As Digen’s feet sought the floor, he knew he would have to shen the boy—to save Lankh’s life, he’d have to. There was time enough for Digen, in augmented motion, to rebel inwardly at what he had to do. Then his feet were on the floor; grimacing savagely, Digen ripped the boy away from his victim.

  Digen flung the stunned Sime across the room and threw himself over him, hastily quelling his augmentation to concentrate on antishock treatment for the boy. Distantly, he heard his own breath coming in great gasping sobs as he fought the total chaos he’d created in the boy’s nerves. He’s still in Need.

  Digen’s every instinct cried out to strip off his retainers and feed that Need. But he could only work at controlling the turbulent shen currents until the boy, weakened by his long battle with infection, lapsed into a deep coma. A moment later, Digen heard the whoosh of several fire extinguishers and the chaotic nager of many Gens rushing into the room.

  Hogan’s hands peeled Digen off Skip’s lax body. Reeling, Digen knelt to examine the boy, cursing the retainers. “He’s not dead, Joel, not yet. It might be better—if….” If we just let him die?

  Digen shook himself. “Call the Center, get a pickup crew over here, jump!” Let him die, oh, please let him die first! Digen, better than anyone else in the Tecton, knew what faced a junct channel. Disjunction had always been the Zeor specialty—and the odd or unusual problems still fell to Zeor’s channels.

  “Digen. Digen? Digen!”

  “Wh-what?” Digen turned to see Hogan bending over Lankh.

  “Digen, Lankh’s still alive! He has to have help!”

  Digen pulled himself up and stared uncomprehendingly at Hogan, then at the crumpled heap of Gen flesh. Yes, there was life there. Dimly at first, and then with growing guilt, Digen realized he had been wholly concerned with Skip, knowing intimately the agony he’d put him through, forgetting that there was another survivor to attend to—also suffering.

  Digen moved to Lankh’s side. “He’s hurt pretty badly,” said Digen, probing blindly through the retainers. “The pickup crew from the Center—they should be here in a few minutes.”

  “If the orderly I sent got through on the phone—the phone company is working on the hospital lines again today.”

  Grimacing, Digen said, “Then, just as insurance, dash upstairs and bring my pharmacy case, the locked half.” Wearing retainers and without the pharmacy case, there wasn’t much Digen could do for Lankh—or was there? As Hogan left, Digen picked up the Gen and put him on the bed.

  “Nurse, get me a number three respirator cart!”

  The major dangers from severe transfer shock—if the victim lived through the first moments—were cardiac arrest, brain hemorrhage, and simple respiratory failure. The hospital had its own odd but sometimes effective means of dealing with such things.

  Digen felt sliced in two. The transfer shock drill had been etched into him during his First Year after changeover. He’d learned the hosp
ital drills more slowly but just as thoroughly. There was no reason you couldn’t treat transfer shock effectively in a hospital—at least on a first aid basis.

  Shen! It’s no different from the idea of doing surgery in a Sime Center!

  Hogan and the orderly with the respirator cart arrived at the same time. Sweeping the things off the night table, Digen took the pharmacy case and motioned Hogan to take a pair of shock paddles from the cart. “Stand by,” he said, while the orderly connected the line from the cart to the wall receptacle.

  At that point Branoff arrived, surveying the swirling chaos of nurses and orderlies in the room, and for the first time Digen heard the page saying, “Paging code green to six-eleven.” They were in six-eleven. And they definitely had a code green on their hands.

  Branoff said, “What’s going on here, Dr. Farris?”

  Fumbling through the retainers, Digen opened his case and began preparing a full therapeutic dose of fosebine in an inhalant aspirator as he told Branoff precisely what had happened, ending, “Where’s the Sime Center pickup squad I asked for?”

  “I sent a runner. Phones are out.”

  Shen! mouthed Digen silently as he closed the inhaler and applied the mask to Lankh’s face. “Lankh’s critical, and I have to work in these damn retainers! Can you get this room sealed off?”

  Branoff looked to the smoldering treatment cart, where two fire control monitors were poking at the remains, muttering their total lack of comprehension of what had caused the fire. The pall of smoke in the room was choking, and only the cross ventilation from the windows and the door let anyone breathe.

  Branoff shook his head. “Let’s move him, bed and all, next door. But I don’t know if I should leave you alone with him. If he dies—well, everybody knows you two aren’t on the best of terms.”

  “That—” started Digen, then broke off. “No,” he said, retreating behind a formality he hadn’t used in years. “I will not take offense where none was intended.”

  “None was intended. But people talk.”

  Digen took the inhalant mask away, concentrating suddenly on Lankh, raising one finger to alert Hogan with the shock paddles. Digen had no idea what the shock paddles would do to a transfer shock victim, but if he had no choice he’d order them used.

  He put one hand on Lankh’s chest, monitoring the heart function as best as he could through the retainers, completely forgetting the stethoscope sticking out of his hip pocket. The faltering heart skipped a beat but then settled into a firm rhythm, and thoughts of heroic procedures dissolved from Digen’s mind.

  “I don’t understand it,” said Digen. “He should have been conscious minutes ago.” But he lowered the alerting hand, and Hogan relaxed.

  “Maybe,” said Hogan, “he inhaled too much smoke. Some oxygen—”

  “No,” said Digen. “Because of the way I terminated the transfer, we may have more than a simple transfer shock to deal with. Let’s just get him out of this smoke.”

  As two women in striped orderly’s uniforms began to move the bed, Lankh tossed and moaned. Digen put out a hand to restrain him, and Lankh’s hands closed over Digen’s retainer. The feel of hard metal against flesh brought the Gen to full wakefulness, wide-eyed.

  Branoff bent over Lankh, saying, “Trust Dr. Farris, he knows what he’s doing. He’s going to take care of you. You’re going to be all right.”

  He went on softly, but Digen didn’t hear him. He was distracted by a couple of nurses getting ready to put Skip on a stretcher. He shouted, “No, don’t move him! The pickup crew will be here before he comes to.” I hope. “That’s an order!” Moving with Lankh’s bed out into the hall, Digen didn’t have time to see if they obeyed.

  Out in the clearer air of the corridor, Lankh’s breathing improved, and he said, “Get your hands off me, Dr. Farris!”

  Digen said, “I can’t. You’ve been very badly hurt, Doctor. We’re going to take you to the Sime Center, where we can treat you more effectively.”

  “No!”

  “You’re feeling all right now because I gave you something for the pain. The initial effect will wear off in a few minutes, and you’re going to require a lot of help. I’ve already saved your life twice, why not again?”

  And Hogan, who was carrying the pharmacy case, said, “The survival rate of transfer shock victims here in the hospital is about one per cent. What is it at the Sime Center, Digen?”

  “About ninety percent.”

  Branoff caught up with them, having used the house phone. “Pickup crew just entered the building.”

  “I won’t go!” said Lankh, struggling.

  “All right,” said Digen, removing his hands from Lankh’s chest, relinquishing what small measure of nageric field interaction he’d established. “Let’s go, Joel. There’s another victim who’ll welcome our help.”

  Hogan followed Digen to the door, too stunned to word his protest. Digen was in the hall before Lankh felt the first chill closing in. He yelled out, pitiful in his sudden panic, “Don’t go! Don’t leave me!”

  Digen paused just outside the door, where Lankh couldn’t see him. Branoff was at the bedside, calling out, “Dr. Farris!”

  Digen said to Hogan, “Wait. He has to realize how badly hurt he is before he’ll cooperate, and there isn’t much I can do without cooperation.”

  “Help me, please help me! I’ll do anything you say!”

  “Now let’s go,” said Digen to Hogan, and went back into the room.

  At the Center, Digen had Lankh placed in the ward presided over by Mora Dyen. He looked in on Lankh twice a day until the Gen was up and around, and then only once a day. Together he and Mora administered lateral contact therapy, often having to use sedatives to keep Lankh calm enough to accept it.

  After a while he ceased fighting them, ceased caring enough to fight them. Over the weeks, he lost weight precipitously, and seemed twenty years older almost overnight. He lost all his old confidence around unretainered Simes and was unable to summon the energy to be terrified. He became timid instead, crouching at the edges of corridors or rooms, frozen physically and emotionally as Simes passed.

  For hours Lankh would sit in his room, hands dangling between his knees, and mumble to himself. Whenever anyone tried to talk to him, no matter what was said to him, he would answer only his internal monologue. “It’s not possible, is it?” “I was only deluding myself.” “There’s no way to rid the earth of the damned.” “So many years—wasted, wasted.”

  While Digen brooded a great deal over Lankh’s condition, still the Gen was only peripheral to Digen that winter. His major problem was Skip Cudney. The authorities, on investigating, found that his father had been a channel by the name of Ozik, and that became the family name used for Skip at the Sime Center.

  Ordinarily a junct would have been sent away in-Territory to one of the isolated camps that specialized in disjunction of berserkers. But this was a junct channel, almost a contradiction in terms. Digen, as Sectuib in Zeor, was the recognized authority on that problem. So, Skip was kept in Westfield, in the ward behind Digen’s changeover ward office, while Lankh was in the ward on the other side of the changeover ward, connected with it via a small, armored door beside the elevators that fronted Digen’s office door.

  Neither Skip nor Lankh knew of each other, and Digen preferred to keep it that way. Neither of them was yet ready to tolerate emotional stress. Skip was on the critical list for a week before his transfers and for a full week afterward. Systemic dysfunctions would come and go without warning during those days. Pretransfer depression often kept him lying almost comatose on his bed.

  In the posttransfer state he was often so manic that it took two channels to restrain him. And it didn’t get better. It got worse.

  He’s going to die.

  Digen came to this conclusion during one particularly difficult transfer in which Skip had gone to the brink of abort three times, with Digen hauling him back by force each time. Afterward they both were exhausted, a
nd Digen again considered altering the therapy to include transfer from a Donor. But he knew it wouldn’t work. It would give Skip no deep-seated inhibition against transfer from a Gen, and that would eventually lead him back to the kill.

  So Digen hung on, month after month, watching Skip move closer and closer to his disjunction crisis—the point at which he would have to make the conscious decision to give himself wholly to a channel’s transfer. Deep down, Digen hoped that the boy wouldn’t survive to die in crisis, or to fail and start all over again, having taken transfer from a Donor. Digen couldn’t stand what he was doing to Skip, denying the boy his rightful due as a channel.

  As Digen’s own transfers improved—twice he managed with only one abort and by mid-winter he was using only one monitoring channel—Digen felt guilty for having what was denied to Skip. They were both, in their own way crippled by the Tecton system. He knew it was ridiculous to feel that way. Skip was growing and thriving under the regimen of channels’ transfers despite the difficulties, while Digen’s own health was deteriorating noticeably because his transfers were not improving fast enough.

  Mickland, Digen had to admit, did his best—scouring the countryside and bargaining like a householder to get Digen Donors in the three-nine-three to three-nine-five range, the best available. Some of them, long out of test, were even better than their ratings; and once, a very good Donor, Tchervain Rholle, was kept at Westfield for three weeks after Digen’s transfer.

  Digen wasn’t permitted the luxury of a full-time therapist, but he did manage to spend quite a bit of time with Tchervain, loosing the hold the Im’ran dependency had on him. But again and again after the halfway point in his cycle Digen would find himself turning to his left, reaching out unconsciously for Im’ran and coming up short against the chill realization—always new—he’s gone!