Unto Zeor, Forever

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Digen continued to drag his way through his obligations, trying to convince himself it couldn’t go on like this forever. During the winter weeks, that was all that kept Digen going—hope.

  And then one night, on the eve of one of Skip’s transfers, Digen was sitting in the changeover ward office trying to make sense of the figures on Skip, thinking that it was almost as if he’d been regularly exposed to a fantastically high field Donor, when suddenly Ilyana Dumas came tearing through the back room and into the office, yelling, “Skip’s gone! He’s not in his room, he’s not anywhere!”

  Digen wanted to ask what she’d been doing in Skip’s room—indeed, what she was doing on this floor at all—but the question seemed silly in the face of the numbers before him. She’s been visiting him! Digen just sat there, looking at her, feasting himself on her nager, with not the least impulse to reprimand her.

  “Digen!” she said, slamming him out of it with a nageric clap of thunder.

  He grabbed for the phone, muttering, “He’s in need—hard need, at that!” He ordered up building security squads and was half out the front door of the office before the voice on the phone finished answering, “Yes, Hajene Farris.”

  Two strides into the hallway, Digen stopped short. Skip Ozik was crouched in front of the elevator doors, facing a Gen woman who was backed against the wall, fist to her mouth, too paralyzed to utter a sound. The heavy armored door, with its small reinforced window—the door beside the elevators that led to the ward where Lankh was being kept—was closed, but, Digen noted, not secured, as it should have been.

  Halfway between Skip and the terrified woman, Digen stood poised, evaluating the situation. Skip had always been so docile in pretransfer that his attendants had probably not watched him closely enough. Digen himself had not expected Skip to try hunting his own transfer. It was too soon for his disjunction crisis, but that indeed seemed to be upon him.

  As Digen pondered, ready to leap between Skip and the woman, Ilyana moved out to Digen’s right and around the receptionist’s desk toward Skip. Her nager was so strong that Skip turned, following Ilyana with his eyes.

  Digen, assuming her move was to protect the woman, circled to his left, placing himself between Skip and the woman. He beckoned to her. “Come here. You’re in no danger now.” With a little coaxing she came, and Digen said, “See that little door by the elevator? Go through there and down the little tunnel, and on the other side you’ll find another bank of elevators. Go down to the ground floor lobby and wait there. I’ll send for you when we’ve secured this floor. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control.”

  Still wide-eyed, the woman sidled through the armored door. Digen’s attention returned to Skip and Ilyana. “Ilyana, not so close to him!” he called, moving to the third point of an equilateral triangle with Skip and the Gen.

  “Skip,” said Ilyana, “you’ve no reason to torment yourself like this. What have they ever done for you?”

  “Ilyana! You are a guest here. Don’t forget that.” He turned to Skip. “Relax. It’s too soon for you to make this decision. We’ll take care of you—”

  “Take care of him?” yelled Ilyana, turning on Digen. “This is how you take care of him, killing him cell by cell!” She turned to Skip and pleaded, “They’ll never let you on their sacred rotation rolls, and I’m not on them either. What possible harm…?”

  “Il-ya-na!” It was Hayashi, emerging from Digen’s office to catch the drift of what she was urging Skip to do.

  Digen turned to him. “It’s premature. Block her.”

  Hayashi circled Ilyana, juggling the fields expertly. Ilyana turned to Digen. “Let me have him. It’s life or death for both of us. And I can prove it’s nothing so terrible. It’s a bold step, Sectuib, but the Tecton can’t just stagnate cringing in fear at every chance for progress. Simes and Gens belong together—can’t you, of all people, see that? Or are you a coward like all the rest of them?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Digen. “He’s a channel, and he’s killed once—almost twice. We don’t dare let him touch a Gen—”

  She tossed her head, glancing from Hayashi to Skip and back to Digen. He could feel the intense effort it cost her to say calmly, “And how many junct channels have survived your methods, Sectuib?”

  “We can discuss the mathematics later,” said Digen.

  “We don’t lose any in Rior. I can give him his kill and not get hurt. It’ll do me good—won’t it, Rin?”

  Rindaleo Hayashi shrank from answering that, but they all knew it was true. Ilyana’s field was a blazing ache begging to be tapped and drained. She needed a channel.

  They were arguing in Simelan, a language Skip was still not fluent in. It would have made no sense to him in any case. Need ruled body and brain, and all at once he leaped at Ilyana, tentacles extended primed for the draw.

  In that same instant Digen and Hayashi moved in concert. As Hayashi scooped Ilyana up and spun clear, Digen intercepted Skip in mid-air, joining lateral to lateral, his own systems primed to offer transfer.

  Skip, in spontaneous kill mode, was unable to stop himself, and simply drew and drew selyn from Digen deep into his aching systems. It was the first trouble free transfer the boy had had at the Sime Center, and for Digen it was both thrilling and satisfying, a vicarious sharing almost as good as having his own transfer.

  It was all over by the time their joined bodies rolled to a stop against the elevator doors.

  A moment later the elevator doors flew open, spilling security guards onto the ward, followed by Mickland. The controller eyed Hayashi holding Ilyana, and then Digen and Skip at his feet. The nager told the story clearly enough, and all the guards heaved a sigh of relief.

  Mickland bent to help Digen to his feet, remanding Skip to the guards. Digen was still a little dizzy with recovery transients by the time he found himself in his own office, with Mickland, Hayashi, and Ilyana. Mickland was still giving orders out the door—“And get that patient back to Mora. He’s in severe postburn depression and shouldn’t have been allowed to see something like that—especially not involving Skip Ozik!”

  Digen was only half listening. Hayashi was meticulously blocking Ilyana out of synch with him, and it hurt.

  “Now,” said Mickland, closing the door firmly, “let’s hear it. And it better be good.”

  Dimly, Digen heard Hayashi telling how Ilyana had overstepped the bounds of her freedom of the top floor—again. He heard Mickland giving out a good reprimand and Hayashi throbbing with guilt and apology. With an effort, Digen shook his head to clear the buzzing in his ears and said, “It’s a good thing she did get down here, Controller Mickland. Thirty seconds later and Skip would have killed a mother in our out-Territory waiting area. Imagine what the Gen papers would make of that!”

  “You mean,” said Ilyana, “that I saved the shendi-fleckin Tecton?”

  She met Digen’s eyes. Simultaneously, they smiled, then laughed. “Yes,” he said, “you did that. At least you saved us some embarrassment, not to mention a woman’s life.”

  “I only wanted Skip to know he doesn’t have to die, not like this. He’s just a kid—”

  “He’s no kid,” said Mickland. “He’s a grown man. And you’ll stay away from him, or your welcome will be over. Understand? Now you, Digen. You’re responsible for this department. How did Skip get loose among out-Territory visitors?”

  Digen shook his head, dropping heavily onto the lounge. He felt strange. “I’ll have to talk to my staff, investigate. I’ll see that things are tightened up by—”

  Digen broke off, wrapping himself around the churning in his middle.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Hayashi, limping to Digen’s side, struggling to discern his fields through Ilyana’s blazing nager. Digen shook his head, waiting for the spasm to pass. He knew that dull, pregnant tension at the back of his neck, the odd, giddy sickness. He got the words out at last. “Touch of entran, that’s all.”

  “What!” said Mickland. “
You’re still in recovery from a secondary functional!”

  Hayashi, kneeling down before Digen with laterals extended, said, “Let me.”

  Digen shook his head, withdrawing. “I’m all right. It’s nothing.”

  But Hayashi had made a brief contact, paused then seized Digen’s tentacles. Digen was too busy fighting to maintain his internal balances to object again. Hayashi hissed between his teeth, “It’s the primary system, Dee. Come look at this.”

  Mickland came to Digen’s other side, probing curiously. “Shen and double shen!” He knelt, concerned now for Digen. “I never heard of such a thing.”

  Hayashi eased Digen down onto the lounge. “It’s that Farris vriamic. His brother Wyner had the same problem once or twice.”

  “I—never—knew that,” gasped Digen.

  “At changeover,” said Hayashi. “Then maybe another time, but we were never sure of the diagnosis. Wyner—Wyner was a law unto himself.”

  “I know,” said Digen. In one quick flash he was a child again, looking up at the tall, tall figure in Zeor blue and Farris black. “I worshipped the ground he walked on.”

  Hayashi worked at Digen’s clothing, exposing his chest. “Will you stop trying to talk?” Over his shoulder, he said, “He’s allergic to apronidal. Get me some nikinimin.”

  Digen felt the cool cream laved onto his chest, the lateral contact warm as Hayashi probed for a more direct reading on his vriamic node. The long, tense, building spasm gathered and gathered, and at last he admitted to himself that it wasn’t “nothing.” It was happening again, the same thing that happened after Ditana Amanso’s surgery.

  Bending over him, watching Hayashi work, Mickland said almost compulsively, “Digen, I’m sorry. I didn’t believe you the first time. I’d never heard of such a thing. No wonder you burned that kid. It’s amazing you didn’t kill him!”

  Hayashi brushed Mickland aside, beckoning to Ilyana. “Put your hands here on the chest and give him a good, solid, high bounce deproda—just like I taught you on the machine, remember? I’ll take the laterals, and when I call it, we’ll bring him down easy.”

  Mickland watched blankly as Ilyana moved to obey. But as she actually touched Digen, Mickland stepped in, blocking her. “Rin! He’s wide open. You know what will happen! Look what she was just doing to Skip Ozik.”

  “I’ll keep her out of synch. Now either match with us, Dee, or get the blazing shen out of this room!”

  Mickland backed off, fading his nager into a rough match but the turbulence triggered the gathering spasm and Digen went rigid. Hayashi grunted as he said, “Now!” and he and Ilyana went to work over Digen, bringing the jammed neural currents gently but firmly into perfect adjustment.

  But, under it all, there was a screeching pain such as he’d never felt before. As he came back to normal he squirmed inwardly to stop the pain, then fell into synch with Ilyana, starting to drift with her, soothed by it. Suddenly she was wrenched away and the pain was back, flaring and then subsiding to a dull ache.

  “Digen, no!” said Hayashi. “Ilyana, go upstairs. This once, let me trust you to do as you’re told.”

  Digen felt her looking at him, responding to his incessant need—a need that had become so constant a part of him that he barely noticed it anymore. He knew now what the pain was—the forced desynchronization with Ilyana.

  “Rin, don’t make me—” she protested.

  “I’ll get someone for you. I promise. Now, go before you undo all we’ve done for him.”

  Reluctantly she edged out the back door as Mickland called after her, “I’ve moved Skip’s room. Don’t go looking for him.”

  Digen felt her contempt for Mickland, but Ilyana left without saying another word. However, she lingered outside in the storeroom, fussing with her disheveled clothes and hair.

  Hayashi turned to Digen, frowning. “Let’s see if you can get up on your feet now. Give me about half percent augmentation, just to clear out the fog.” Backing away, he held out his hand to steady Digen.

  Just touching the tips of Hayashi’s fingers, Digen bounded to his feet, then cut the augmentation abruptly. “I feel—perfectly normal,” he said. And now that he’s saved my life, what am I going to do?

  In an awkward silence, Digen felt compelled to say, “Thank you.”

  Hayashi smiled with an attempt at remote formality and said, “As One First….” Then he made a big to-do, slapping the wrinkles out of his uniform coveralls, running tentacles through his sparse hair. Digen paced around behind the desk and sat down, staring at a stack of requisition orders.

  Hayashi, limping across the office to confront Mickland, said, “Well, Dee, that’s it. We’ve got to do something. He can’t go on like this. His primary system has to be fully stretched—on a regular schedule, or—or—well, or else.…”

  Mickland paced a circle around Hayashi. “I’m doing my best! You don’t know how hard it is—”

  “Come off it! I’ve been district and regional Controller often enough to know what the job entails!”

  “You want the job back, maybe?”

  “I’ve served my time. Now it’s your turn, and you’re going to do the job!” said Hayashi.

  “And just what do you suggest?”

  “Well, for a start, give Digen to me. I’ve been yelling for another therapist for Ilyana for weeks now. She’s got to be put on a tri-month schedule soon, or she’ll jump off the building one of these days. That’s why she went after Skip.”

  “Rin, you know why we can’t do that.”

  “And I know why we’ve got to. Look, I’m not asking this just to save two lives. I’m trying to save the whole blazing Tecton. It’s this theory we’re using—it’s wrong somewhere. Maybe with a little more data on the far ends of the curves, like way out where Digen and Ilyana are, maybe I can do it.”

  Exasperated, Mickland paced over to the hot plate and plugged it in, pouring water into the pot from the pitcher. Digen concentrated on the man’s nager, trying to discern how his thinking was going. He felt his whole life depended on this.

  At last Mickland turned to Hayashi. “Maybe—maybe you’d have something to relieve the Donor shortage, and maybe you wouldn’t. But for sure I’d have a red-roaring scandal on my hands. I’d go down in history as a traitor, for turning the Sectuib in Zeor over to a Distect Gen.”

  “You’d go down in history as the man who was brave enough to save the Tecton, and every First in the world would worship your memory for generations. If that’s what you want out of life, you’d have it, but I don’t want any part of that. I just want to shore up this rickety structure we’re all depending on.”

  “I don’t know what you’re worried about. I haven’t let you be shorted—much—recently.”

  Hayashi’s eyes rested on Digen as he spoke to Mickland! “It isn’t personal. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Call it—call it an unusual upbringing.”

  Hayashi captured Digen’s eyes for a moment, but Digen tore away. He knew deep down that Hayashi wasn’t just saying this to impress the Sectuib in Zeor. But he was not going to acknowledge the tie between them, which his father had wanted obliterated.

  Ilyana slid back into the room, indignation around her like a cloud. “Just what makes you people so glibly certain I’d accept him? You’re killing Skip, you’ve destroyed that doctor fellow without the mercy of killing him, you’re torturing Digen to death, and you’re tormenting me like a rat in a maze—and all in the name of your precious Tecton! And now you expect me to submit to experiments to save your hides?”

  Hayashi, moving to her side, said, “It would be good for you, and with precautions—”

  “Precautions? You’re going to let me have him but not let me have him? More torture? Rin—I—I won’t, don’t you understand that yet?”

  “You came to us for help,” said Mickland. “We’re doing our best for you.”

  “Are you?”

  “It’s merely academic,” said Digen. “They have to have my consen
t too on something like this. And I won’t play games. You and I are matchmates—and Zeor doesn’t marry out of Zeor, let alone out of the Tecton. If I got caught in a lortuen with you—as you stand now—I’d be worse off than I am now. You’ll pledge and qualify, Ilyana, or I won’t touch you.”

  They were brave words. Digen didn’t know just how far he could actually back them up. Her nager was like silk on his raw nerves and somehow made him want to cry.

  “Is that some kind of an ultimatum, Sectuib Farris?”

  “You could call it that. I prefer to call it an act of mercy. Now get out of here.”

  “Oh, I will. But first I’ll tell you what I think of you. Hypocrite, that’s the word. You profess that you’d do anything for this almighty Tecton of yours, but you haven’t got the courage of a Mickland-cringing lorsh! Sime~Gen unity, the shining Zeor dream! Well, I’ll tell you something, Sectuib ambrov Zeor—the day I actually see the Tecton do something toward unity, that’s the day I’ll pledge and qualify. But that day will never come, because the first one of you to so much as bend one of your precious rules for a chance to end all this—this—human wreckage—would be torn to bits by the ravening mob of cowards you’ve let take control of your world. People’s souls are bleeding to death in the streets out there, and you sit there talking about acts of mercy and bowing down to that lorsh you call a Controller, who couldn’t even control his own bowels without a law to tell him to! And you call yourself Zeor! You ought to be shenned and shidded into attrition!”

  She whirled and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her with a vicious crack.

  The three channels expelled long breaths in unison.

  “Well, I guess that idea’s out,” said Hayashi.

  Mickland was stunned. “What do we do now?”

  “Give me a minute,” said Hayashi. “I’ll think of something.” He went to the hot plate and carefully measured tea into three glasses, pouring boiling water over the fine grounds, then setting each glass in a holder and handing them out. The little ritual settled all their nerves. It was becoming a habit for all the Simes to resort to some steadying ritual when Ilyana left a room.